Abstract
A retrospective lens is applied in this chapter to understand former New Labour government’s reasoning for advocating an ethnically diverse curriculum to be delivered in English schools; the role it saw the National Curriculum as playing in British society and in raising the attainment of ethnically diverse groups; together with how such expectations led to the commissioning of two National Curriculum diversity reports. Drawing on social justice perspectives, the chapter discusses how New Labour’s emphasis on recognising ethnically diverse students and British identities in the curriculum was rejected by subsequent Coalition and Conservative governments in favour of the negative positioning of student diversity through the Prevent agenda under the guise of threats to national security. The chapter concludes with discussion of the ‘public good’ and how an ethnically diverse curriculum can enhance the equality both of opportunity and of outcomes.
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Notes
- 1.
The UK government only has responsibility for education in England (powers are devolved to the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), but assumes a responsibility for ‘British Identity’.
- 2.
‘Asian’ in Britain usually refers specifically to people of South Asian heritage (Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans). Government surveys (e.g. DfE 2020) that collect ethnicity data from those willing to give it currently obtain data according to the primary group ‘Asian or Asian British’, and then the secondary groups ‘Indian’, ‘Pakistani’, ‘Bangladeshi’, and ‘Any other Asian background’. ‘Chinese’ is a separate category, not included in Asian. This is different from usages in other countries; for example, in the USA, ‘Asian’ is used to refer to people of East Asian heritage.
- 3.
Workforce data collected by the Department for Education (2020) in England show that in 2018, 85.1% of classroom teachers identified as White British and 5.6% as White Irish/Other: 90.7% White in total.
- 4.
Black people are not recent arrivals to the UK as it is often assumed. Black Africans first arrived in England as soldiers in the Roman army in the third century, 350 years before the English are known to have been in England. Black Africans have been recorded in England in greater numbers since the Elizabethan times – and not all were in subservient positions or enslaved, often they were skilled and highly regarded craftspeople; an example of which is the King’s trumpeter, John Blanke in the early sixteenth century (of whom there are two portraits). There is historical evidence of Black Africans having married English natives, which means that many ‘White’ Britons today will have at least one of them as a (distant) ancestor of Black Africans. A detailed analysis of the history of Black people in the UK can be found in Fryer (2018).
- 5.
Black and Minority Ethnic refers to people who would describe themselves as Black African, African–Caribbean, Mixed White and Black, Black Other; Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Mixed White and Asian (ONS 2012).
- 6.
Multiverse was government funded from 2003 to 2010. Funding ended when the new Conservative-led Coalition government was formed in England.
- 7.
GCSE examinations are taken at age 16.
- 8.
The Training and Development Agency for Schools was at that time the body then responsible for the initial and in-service training of teachers in England.
- 9.
Supplementary schools are community-organised and community-led independent ventures, that operate outside of normal school hours for 2–3 h during the evening, and/or at the weekend usually on a Saturday. These schools prioritise extending BME students learning in the curriculum areas of mathematics, English and science, whilst reinforcing their cultural identities through cultural enrichment activities not offered in mainstream education and developing strategies to resist racism encountered in schools. Students are taught in small groups, pairs and one-to-one. Supplementary schools provide tuition via a mixture of no charge, parental donations and a small fee, which allows low-income parents to access these schools. For a detailed discussion and understanding of the impact of supplementary schools on the educational outcomes of BME students see Maylor et al. (2013).
- 10.
In the UK, only schools that are funded through a Local Authority have to follow the National Curriculum. Other schools (academies and free schools) can ‘follow a different curriculum’ (https://www.gov.uk/types-of-school). However, most schools follow the National Curriculum because it is closely linked to the syllabuses for national tests and exams.
- 11.
In 2011, Cameron would have been familiar with for example, the bombing carried out by Anders Breivik a far-right Norwegian terrorist, who in July 2011, killed 77 people many of whom were aged 16–22.
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Maylor, U. (2021). Curriculum Diversity and Social Justice Education: From New Labour to Conservative Government Control of Education in England. In: Ross, A. (eds) Educational Research for Social Justice . Education Science, Evidence, and the Public Good, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62572-6_11
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